


Can't Stop Smiling

by Mocha (whostolemypenname)



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Angst, Heart-to-Heart, Kinda vaguely romancey, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whostolemypenname/pseuds/Mocha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HALF WILD SPOILERS</p>
<p>Carrying on from the scene at the end of Half Wild when Nathan eats his father's heart. Inspired by All Time Low's 'Therapy'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Stop Smiling

I’m smiling. A horrible, savage, feral grin that splits my face in two. I can feel the raw power of Marcus’ Gifts burning through my veins, sparks of electricity leaping through my heart, the beats stronger and more powerful than ever before. I see everything with such increased clarity: the leaves on the trees; the tiny flaws and imperfections in the wall of the concrete building twenty feet away; the blood dripping from my chin onto the Fairborn, and from there back into Marcus’ open chest. A perfect cycle of death and rebirth. It’s almost enough to make you believe in karma. It used to be that whenever I thought of karma, I reckoned I must have been a serial killer or something equally bad in a past life. Now, though… I’m not so sure. For this feeling of invincibility, it seems that it was worth all the suffering. I wonder if Marcus felt like this all the time. There is one other thing I see:

The line of Hunters rising up around me.

Annalise has long since gone- I see her now for what she always was: a traitor. Perhaps not at the beginning, but since then she has changed enough to be almost a different person entirely. I realise this now, and I bear her no love.

I can see Jessica now, standing at what can only be described as the centre of the line, even though the Hunters stand in a circle- no beginning, no end. I see again Marcus’ blood falling, falling from the tip of the Fairborn, back into his chest. The cycle continues. I keep on smiling. I do not seem able to stop.

Looking at Jessica makes my thoughts drift to Deborah, Arran, and the love they bear for me. At the word ‘love’, out of habit, my mind pulls me to memories of Annalise, like a broken record. But for her, the word bears no meaning. It is just a sound, a collection of lines on a page that never made sense for me anyway. But now the page is starting to make sense, the lines and squiggles become like the words I hear as I think, as I speak. And in my mind, the letters make a word. This word is not black on white, but an immersion of colours, twisting, flexing, ever changing. Yet I think I can read it. The savage smile on my face shrinks, almost disappearing, before it returns. Yet it is different, softer, more human than animal now. It is no longer a snarl, but a real smile. I hear the word again, louder, see it painted larger on the canvas of my mind. It makes more sense, I realise now, not to see it as letters printed on a page, but a painting, like the ones I did at school in the only subject worth attending. The word is clearer now. I can see it. I can read it. I can understand it.

_Gabriel._


End file.
